South Sudan is advancing toward its first national elections since independence, but the political, security, and human rights safeguards required for a peaceful and credible vote are largely absent, the UN Commission on Human Rights (OHCHR) in South Sudan warned on 20 August 2026 in a new Advisory, according to a press release. The Commission cautioned that elections held without a strategy for democratic consolidation and preventing national schisms could fuel renewed conflict and heighten the risk of atrocity crimes. The Advisory, titled At the Brink: Preventing Atrocity Crimes and Safeguarding South Sudan’s Transition, identifies multiple converging risk factors. It stresses that the political contest surrounding the elections risks deepening existing divisions rather than resolving them peacefully. The Commission supports the right of South Sudanese to participate freely in genuine democratic elections.
Armed conflict has resumed in several parts of the country, inclusive politics is being abandoned, and civic space and constitutional safeguards have been weakened. Accountability mechanisms remain largely absent, and significant sections of the population remain excluded from meaningful political participation. Under the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), security-sector reform, accountability, and constitutional reform were intended to lay the basis for credible elections. The Government’s latest assessment shows that 46.4 per cent of the Agreement’s provisions remain outstanding, and the unification of national forces remains incomplete. The Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan was first established in March 2016 and has been renewed annually since.
Applying the UN Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes, the Commission finds that renewed armed conflict, weakened institutions, entrenched impunity, exclusionary governance, corruption, shrinking civic space, and inflammatory rhetoric are converging. Mitigation mechanisms, including ceasefire monitoring, independent justice institutions, and inclusive political dialogue, have been weakened or suspended. The Commission identifies essential conditions for a credible electoral process, including a monitored cessation of hostilities and unified national security forces under a non-partisan command. Additional conditions include restored civic and political space, independent electoral institutions, and impartial electoral dispute resolution. It also calls for protection of women, youth, persons with disabilities, internally displaced persons, and refugees.
“South Sudanese have waited 15 years to cast their first ballots as citizens of an independent state. They have the right to choose their government through free, peaceful and democratic elections. They deserve an election that gives them a voice, not one that puts their lives at risk,” said Yasmin Sooka, Chair of the Commission.
Commissioner Barney Afako added that the peace agreement was designed to take the guns out of political competition but that “the guns are returning while the safeguards for peaceful political competition are disappearing.” Commissioner Carlos Castresana Fernández emphasized that an election cannot be credible simply because it is held on schedule.
The Commission called on the Government and all parties to the R-ARCSS to cease hostilities immediately, restore transitional security arrangements, and reconvene an inclusive political dialogue involving Dr Machar’s SPLM-IO faction, holdout groups, civil society, and representatives of women and youth. It also called for the release of detained opposition leaders, including Dr Machar, unless brought promptly before an independent and impartial court. The Commission urged the African Union, IGAD, the United Nations, and other international partners to intensify coordinated preventive diplomacy. It warned that the window to prevent a return to the scale of atrocities and displacement South Sudan endured between 2013–2018 is closing but has not yet completely shut. The current trajectory, the Commission stated, is not irreversible.